By Evie Greville, First Year English.
Antigone 89 is a striking exploration of the importance of recollection. Li Friess having impressively interwoven the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 with the Greek Tragedy Antigone of Thebes. This play is startlingly relevant, the Berlin Wall as a tool mirroring contemporary political strategy in Palestine and Mexico. Friess asserts the ignorance of assuming we are better than the past and pleads for the audience to pay attention in the face of contemporary oppression and cruelty. 1989 is the pivotal and precise moment Friess chose for this tragedy, marked by revolutions such as the Czechoslovakian Velvet Revolution, and the overthrow of the Romanian communist dictatorship, part of the initiation of the collapse of communist power in Eastern Europe. The Greek tragedy reframed in this context emphasises the terror of oppressive rule experienced in Berlin, the group ensemble of ‘Fateʼ mirroring Greek tradition alongside the carnage of the conclusion.
Antigone 89 begins with the shooting down of Polyneices (Rafael Edgerton) as he attempts to clamber over the Berlin Wall, just a week before it will fall. His death leads to a ricochet of events, in which his sister, Antigone (Aminah Jimoh), will risk and lose it all to bury her brother and defy the Stasi.
Jimoh's Antigone commands the audienceʼs attention from the onset, lamenting her horror over Polyneicesʼ abandoned corpse, her every word steeped in grief. The audience are then introduced to Antigoneʼs family, Oma (Beth Griffiths), her grandmother, and Antigoneʼs sister, Ismene (Georgina Walker), which establish the wider complications of the play to come as the characters are subjected to the EDRʼs authority. Whilst glimmers of humour crop up through them and other characters, most notably and successfully with Haemenʼs mother (Edie Diay), these moments serve primarily to elevate the brutality of the play's focus.
Antigone, unable to bear her brotherʼs body left in no man's land, pleads with her soldier fiancé Haemen (Evan Moynihan) to assist her in the plot to bury her brother. Succeeding, the burial of Polyneices spurs the flames of rebellion that are already burning against the EDR. To use Fateʼs voice (Celia Kelly, Charlie Warwick, Abby Marles), the revolution had begun to seep like ‘honeyʼ into Berlinʼs streets, the population beginning to ‘swarm.ʼ
Creon (Jago Abbot), the Stasi Commander, is outraged by such rebellion, and Abbot brings the crucial viciousness to the stage such a role demands. The audience are condemned to watch his cruel tyranny, unable to tear their gaze away, with sadistic, drawling pronunciation and brutal malice in his every breath.
Ismene, as she learns of Antigoneʼs criminality, begins to crumble, Walkerʼs trembling visage and howling protests creating palpable tension in the air. Walker's facial expressions are able to convey her terror and experience with repression in an instant and her delivery is impressively authentic.
Friess incorporates a series of narrative breaks that interlace complex layers alongside this building narrative. Mim Clements, for instance, steals the stage with a compelling performance of Der Kleine Angstahse, the GDRʼs most popular children's book, the narrative of the rabbit mirroring the revolutionary spirit growing in Berlin. Additionally, an interview with Peter Walter, a previous Stasi spy, is recreated to investigate complicity and the denial of Western brutality. However, the voice I found most intriguing was Oma, a character which taking inspiration from Friess' own grandmother, as she discusses her childhood under Nazi occupation. These scenes intertwined with the narrative reimpose the crushing reality of the events on stage and their importance.
Polyneices launches us into Act 2 with a passionate soliloquy, condemning the ‘strip of anarchyʼ, riveting the audience for the oncoming action. Edgertonʼs boyish charm elicits amiability and reminds the audience of the cruelty that initiated this narrative.
A thrilling scene follows, in which Haemen confesses his betrayal, having given away Antigone due to the EDRʼs blackmail. The chemistry between Moynihan and Jimoh in this scene is truly astounding. Moynihanʼs portrayal of devastation and love is staggering.
An unprecedented twist enters the narrative between Creon and Oma just before Antigoneʼs arrest. The two have a passionate dispute, tied up in revolution, defiance, and complicity. Abbottʼs sneering face and cruelty counters Griffithʼs steady resolve. I was utterly horror struck, watching as Oma was murdered in her defiance.
Arrested and cornered for her crime, Antigone refuses to submit or beg to Creon and defies him to the last with taunting resistance, and in a final rebellion takes her own life in her cell before he gets the chance. Haemen, meanwhile, flees to Antigoneʼs side, beside himself with guilt for her capture. Finding her having slit her wrists, he follows suit.
The revolution begins to boil over, anger over Antigoneʼs fate having incensed the people. The wall is torn down and people begin to flee. Creon in response to the death of his state and his tyranny commits the final suicide of the play.
Ismene, the last remaining of the main characters, is pleaded with to escape to the new world, and yet she refuses. She settles into her grandmotherʼs now vacant seat, terrified to watch cruelty grow elsewhere, but still choosing to stay and grieve the life she has known which will inevitably be torn away from her.
A standing ovation ensued, Walkerʼs face erupting into a grin, the cast pouring onto the stage. The achievement of Antigone 89 is an outstanding retelling of the original Greek Tragedy within historical context, made all the richer by the reality sewn into the seams of the play.
